Chapter 384: Extraordinary Accident 2
"I—I don’t know what else I was thinking about," August strained to recall. "I know my fingers started tingling, and I was furious when I discovered that Penelope was helping him."
"Him?" Nedra asked.
"Zagan," August answered. "I had just gotten my memory back, and that definitely contributed to it. She had taken the most precious thing from me—my memories—even though I had consciously chosen to come here and leave everything behind. I allowed myself to be taken prisoner by him, and yet they still had to invade my mind with that enchantment. She did it to my mother as well and everyone else in my past who no longer remembers that I even exist. Graeme was the last straw."
Nedra considered the emotions August must have had at the time, but it didn’t sound like there was anything that would be specific enough in her mind to have targeted the island’s alyko in order to send them back to where they had originated.
"I don’t know that it makes much sense. The only other thing I can think of is if you are somehow connected to others when you use your power... other fae in the area, causing them to get a supercharge of whatever it is you are sending. The alyko who are not as strong were the ones who left, but I stayed... Penelope stayed. Even though we are not in any level of containment, we were not affected in the same way or at all. Penelope mentioned that you have a talisman that allowed you to leave the room. Were you wearing it at the time?"
"Yes, that is how I was able to break the memory enchantment and why I was so upset," she answered.
"Talismans amplify power. So it is possible that made it even more of a powerful event at the time. If you are somehow able to connect with other alyko, then that could have done it. But you are not wearing it now?" Nedra asked.
"No," August answered, smiling to herself.
"You should be," Nedra turned to her. "You may need it. And if you were to be the one to kill Zagan, it would help you. You need all the help you can get with that task."
"Someone else needed it more," she said simply without elaborating. She would prefer Graeme had it, especially if he had been unable to remember her. Hopefully the crow delivered it successfully. "Could it have to do with your will to be here?" she asked, changing the subject.
"What?" Nedra’s eyebrows pinched together in question, not following.
"You and Penelope did not vanish and yet the other alyko did. Do you think it had to do with your will to be here. You choose to be here, don’t you? You could leave if you wanted to. The same is probably true for Penelope. She is deeply invested in killing the vampire."
"I think she is as equally invested in protecting you," Nedra guessed based on how Penelope seemed worried about August’s whereabouts.
"Yeah, because I am the one who she believes can kill him," August snorted.
"Well, regardless... it sounds as if you are on to something," Nedra nodded slowly. "I think there is something to it—the desire of the alyko here. Those who left wished to be elsewhere. It is similar, after all, when you open a portal. It was similar with how I was able to create this place. I focused my thoughts and desire and need for it. There was more to it than just a simple portal, but..."
"You created this place? Are we not just somewhere out in the middle of the ocean on a remote island?" August’s mouth dropped open.
"No," Nedra chuckled lightly. "It was extremely difficult."
"You are powerful, indeed. I can’t even fathom how you were able to do that," August remarked, looking at her surroundings now with a new appreciation. How would one even go about creating an entirely new dimension?
"I did it because I had to," she sighed. "But there are issues with it. Time is one of them. Time is complicated, and the way it behaves here is very odd and not at all consistent. Well, there are some consistencies, but it is also quite mysterious and confusing. We have no night. We have no other celestial bodies other than the sun, which behaves very strangely if you notice."
"Why is that the case?" August asked, squinting up at the sky.
"I couldn’t bring the entirety of the universe into this manufactured space," she chuckled. "And now I am frozen in a way, just like a vampire. All of us who are here are."
"You do not age?" August frowned. Well, it made sense now why Nedra appeared so young if she was in fact Sage and Selah’s mother.
"Very, very, very slowly," Nedra said. "But that too, is strange. Our bodies seem to keep their inner clock. We eat and sleep, and yet the sun does not go down, and as long as we keep moving, it is as if we are passing alongside time—almost as companions of it—rather than time passing us."
"Companions with time? How strange," August muttered. "I opened a portal. Maybe more than one. And now that I think about, they were at times when I had a desperate need or desire for them. I suppose it is possible that it could have happened for the alyko here that way."
"If that is what happened, I wonder if the alyko who vanished were able to keep the power you gave them," Nedra thought aloud. "You may have actually changed their abilities with that accident of yours. Wouldn’t that be something?"
August considered it as they both continued walking toward where the containment facility was. "Can I ask you a question?" August spoke up after some time walking in silence.
"Of course."
"Do you know if Maggie... if, uh, Magnolia is here? Or what containment level she was in?" August asked, still thinking of how relieved Graeme and Greta would both be to have her back home. She wanted to do that for them so badly, especially if she could not be there herself.
"Maggie, yes. As long as we are thinking of the same Maggie. She is very powerful. She is in inner containment. I visited with her once. She is extremely pleasant to be around as most alyko are, of course," Nedra said.
"Inner containment. So she would still be here," August said quietly. "I hope you are able to get us in there so I can see for myself."
